Depression linked to a higher risk of long -term physical health problems

Adults with a history of depression get long-term physical conditions of about 30% faster than those without, according to research published on 13 February in the Open-Access Journal Plos -medication.

Kelly Fleetwood from the University of Edinburgh, the United Kingdom and colleagues claim that their study suggests that depression should be seen as an ‘whole body’ state, and integrated approaches must be used to manage mental and physical health.

Depression is the most common mental health status and is associated with a series of negative results of physical health, such as heart disease and diabetes. Earlier research has compared people to and without depression to see how many physical circumstances they develop over time, but most studies look at a small number of diseases.

Fleetwood and colleagues wanted to quantify the association between depression and the speed with which the circumstances built up in midlife and older age.

The team included 172,556 volunteers in the UK Biobank Study, 40-71 years old, who completed a basic assessment between 2006 and 2010. They selected 69 physical circumstances and followed the participants on average 6.9 years. Initially, people with depression had an average of three physical circumstances compared to an average of two in that without.

During the study period, adults with a history of depression built on average 0.2 extra physical circumstances per year, while they were 0.16 without accrued. The most common new disorders were osteoarthritis (15.7% of those with depression at start versus 12.5% ​​without), hypertension (12.9% versus 12.0%) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (13.8% versus 9.6%).

The results emphasize that earlier diagnosis of depression is a marker for the risk of development of long -term physical health problems during middle and older age. Most healthcare systems are designed to treat individual disorders instead of people with multiple disorders, and the authors believe that integrated approaches to the management of both mental and physical health can improve care and results.

The authors add: “People who have experienced depression are more likely to develop physical health problems in the long term, such as heart disease and diabetes; existing health care systems are designed to treat individual disorders rather than individual people with multiple disorders. We need healthcare services to follow an integrated approach for people who have both depression and long -term physical health problems. “